Science & Technology, UK (Commonwealth Union) – Childhood body mass index may have a lower likelihood of having a significant impact on children’s mood or behavioral disorders, as reveled by a study led by the University of Bristol that was recently published in eLife.
The results indicate that certain prior studies, which had demonstrated a strong connection between childhood obesity and mental health, may not have completely taken into account family genetics and environmental factors.
Children with obesity have an increased chance of being diagnosed with depression, anxiety, or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the nature of the relationship between obesity as well as these mental health conditions is unclear. Obesity may play a role in mental health symptoms, or vice versa. Other factors such as environment may also play a role in obesity as well as mood and behavioral conditions.
Individuals with ADHD usually find it difficult to concentrate or stay focused, as well as remaining organized and forgetting activities. Many demographic factors have also been noticed for those with ADHD such as being more prevalent among males when compared to females.
Lead author Dr Amanda Hughes, Senior Research Associate in Epidemiology at the Bristol Medical School: Population Health Sciences (PHS) at the University of Bristol stated that there was a requirement to better know the link between childhood obesity and mental health, further stating that there is a need to tease apart contributions of child and parent genetics and the atmospheric factors impacting the whole family.
Dr Hughes and her team evaluated genetic and mental health data from 41,000 8-year-old children as well as their parents from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study and the Medical Birth Registry from Norway. An evaluation was made on the relationship between children’s body mass index (BMI), a ratio of weight and height together with symptoms of depression, anxiety and ADHD. In separating the impact of the children’s genetics from the influence of other factors impacting the entire family, they further took into account parental genetics and BMI.
The evaluation saw a minor effect of a child’s own BMI towards their anxiety symptoms. Conflicting findings were also seen on if a child’s BMI influenced their depressive or ADHD symptoms. This indicates that policies targeted at lowering childhood obesity were less likely to have a significant impact on the widespread nature of these conditions.
Neil Davies, Professor at University College London (UCL) says “At least for this age group, the impact of a child’s own BMI appears small. For older children and adolescents, it could be more important.”
As they explored the effect of the parents’ BMI on the children’s mental health, the team saw less evidence that the parents’ BMI impacted children’s ADHD or anxiety symptoms. The data indicating that having a mother with a higher BMI may be associated with depressive symptoms in children, but there was less proof of any association between the child’s mental health and the paternal BMI.
“Overall, the influence of a parent’s BMI on a child’s mental health seems to be limited. As a result, interventions to reduce parents’ BMIs are unlikely to have widespread benefits to children’s mental health,” said Alexandra Havdahl a Research Professor from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
“Our results suggest that interventions designed to reduce child obesity are unlikely to make big improvements in child mental health. On the other hand, policies which target social and environmental factors linked to higher body weights, and which target poor child mental health directly, may be more beneficial,” added Hughes.
Havdahl is a co-senior author of the study together with Professor Neil Davies and Laura Howe, Professor of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics at the Bristol Medical School: PHS.
